There were plenty of critics of Irvine’s me-myself-and-I financing for the Great Park – a complicated $134 million deal between Irvine (the city), its redevelopment agency (essentially, the city) and the Great Park Corporation (also, essentially, the city). To be repaid over decades at a (rather beefy) 9 percent interest rate.

Hmmm, said a skeptical Orange County grand jury back in 2010. “Whether the $134 million loan ever will be fully repaid to ...

A bolt of lightning streaked from the sky and hit close to the LaSalle County nuclear power plant in Illinois, knocking its two reactors off the main power grid last April.

The reactors went into automatic shutdown. Five emergency generators sprang into action. But things went awry as workers tried to get “makeup water” into the reactor vessels to cool them, and use safety relief valves to control mounting internal pressure: Within hours, ...

The baby teeth of kids living near the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant contained radioactive Strontium-90 – which can cause bone cancer and leukemia – at levels nearly one-third higher than in the baby teeth of other California kids, says a controversial study released last week.

The big question is: Did it cause bone cancer and leukemia?

Researchers from the National Academy of Sciences will huddle at Irvine’s Beckman Center on Thursday, under the ...

Latest from the “whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting over” files:

The San Diego County Water Authority, not content to simply beat the mighty Metropolitan Water District of Southern California in court, is now poking its pointy fingers in Met’s eyeballs. Metropolitan isn’t just overcharging us! It’s overcharging everyone! San Diego says, offering an online calculator underscoring its (tentative) legal victory, and allowing folks to see – city by city and water district ...

A stunning once-secret investigation into the escapades of former Vernon exec Bruce Malkenhorst – a Huntington Beach resident now fighting to keep his $551,000-a-year public pension – alleges that Malkenhorst stealthily and systematically bled hundreds of thousands of dollars from the peculiar city's coffers.

It was a simple question with enormous implications: Can a group of public workers who dislike the penny-pinching ways of their pension system just take their ball and go play elsewhere?

The answer: they apparently can (with the aid of a legislative miracle or two). But they apparently won’t (at least for the time being, as miracles are in short supply). Thus sparing California’s pension systems potential havoc.

Nearly two years after vowing to slash the half-million-dollar public pension of a convicted felon, CalPERS is finally, actually, doing so.

Better late than never?

We’ve been telling you for quite some time about the saga of Bruce Malkenhorst, retired administrator for the tiny city of Vernon, who pleaded guilty to misappropriating public funds in 2011, and who received pension checks totaling $541,000 in 2012.

Orange County business types are furious with the “lawsuit-happy” Orange County Water District, and are rallying behind bills in Sacramento that would dramatically clip the agency’s wings.

OCWD’s response? Officials proposed spending $20,000 a month on lobbyists and public relations types to battle said bills (total cost$140,000, not including travel and expenses), in addition to the $10,000 a month it already spends on its regular lobbyist (Townsend Public Affairs, $120,000 a year), ...